Listening

       – be not hearing –

Listening

       – be not hearing –      

One may hear words
He’d want find bold,
Be bordering absurd 
Decries nervous soul, 
Fortuitously blurred 
Of insignificant dole,
Be il facilely heeding
For a fit tenuous droll,
Appear as not hearing
Will have taken its toll,
Despite ye be listening
To words fits not whole... 

Sets thy thoughts pacific
That of tranquil insisting,
Tho find lack of specific
Thus, focus but on living,
As constant ethnographic
Finds carry on persisting,
So pass on bent spasmodic
For listening be not hearing!

		Ode to thinking man...

        ©️ Jean-Jacques Fournier 

                                written in Sweetsburg
	                     November 12, 2022

Imagery - Wikimedia Commons
Music - Excerpt of Pure Imagination at 2:30 min. by Scott Hamilton
Audio -	Jean-Jacques Fournier   

A Craggy Shell

            – begs not dispel –

How can one tell
If still of need,
Man’s craggy shell
Near gone to seed, 
Suggests farewell
And denies plead,
Begs not dispel 
The while he lives,
May find to dwell
Where soul outlives,
Said craggy shell
Tho mayn’t forgive,
Portends bordering hell!

						     written in Sweetsburg
						  © Jean-Jacques Fournier

“ Where The Lost Abound ” – desperate to be whole –

Listen to audio

“ Where The Lost Abound ”

                      – desperate to be whole –

In small cafes,

I sat around

Watching arrays

Of lost abound,

There but to play

Said morose lives,

That slip away

With wary anguish…

I linger here

To write of life,

That so abounds

In abysmal strife,

Till muse absconds

Urge to describe,

Their sad parade

In a despondency

That blurs its find,

Yet when about

To write the line,

Their faces fade                                                                                      

 As tho I’m blind…

So as I glimpse

This pot-pourri,

A mere semblance

Of the reality I see,

In a poor writ play

Of wretched beings,  

Moving mindlessly

Looking for a soul,                      

As they move round, 

Desperate to be whole

Thru that turbulent sea,                                                                                     

Where the lost abound!

                                             © Jean-Jacques Fournier

Music, Lazy Sunday- by Smooth Jazz

Pictures , MD and private collection

“ The Other Side ” – of nowhere –

                                                 Listen to audio

“ The Other Side ”

             – of nowhere –

It’s a state of mind

Where the place to be,

Is a paradise uncharted

That sanity infers,

Is a situate must see

While so far it seems,

Getting there does mean

One need travel,

If but a gift for dreaming

On the other side of nowhere…

Doubt may at times

Discern ye be afraid,

Clouds so our mind

Yet fails to dissuade,

Of new worlds define

Be humanly worthy,

Said majority’s kind

So unlike parasitical,

Precursor to the blind

Seen perilous politicals,

Since inept left behind …

Hence I daren’t hesitate

With this bold escapade,

Want readily participate

In what leads to souls aid,

Facing a world, in decline

Not iniquitous charade,                                                                      

Held be set state of mind

If ye should opt to believe,

Can so resolve to soon find,

The other side of nowhere!

 

                     ov written in Montreal in 2001                        

                                            © Jean-Jacques Fournier

Music, The Journey Before Dawn – by Natura Silentia

Paintings include, Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Fall and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden and William Blake, Illustration to Dante’s Inferno, Dante and Virgil at the Gates of Hell.

Photos by/par, MD

“ A Distant Presence ” – stored in old memories –

                                                                 Listen to audio

“ A Distant Presence ”

            – stored in old memories –

 

I feel a presence

Ever distant,

Lurking

In my memory,

Probing

Unrelentingly,                                                                             

To surface

Above reticence,

Ne’er forgotten

Be one’s musings,

Despite a dying voice

Caught in the shadows,

Of a haunting choice

Stays a distant presence,

Stored in old memories…

 

I feel its existence

Lamenting regret,

Of relic adolescence

Did tend to forget,

One’s life so harried

Time be left scattered,

Yet held little matter

Amid memory’s embers,

Despite imploring pleas

Woefully entreating time,

On symbolic knees

Ought allow to remind,

Before the while be no more

Than a haunting memory…

 

Tho still I hear whispers

Of a lingering voice,

Must be the patient soul

In its life’s awoken choice,

Holds stored in old memories

That of a distant presence! 

           

                        © Jean-Jacques Fournier  

                                           July 12, 2020             

            Music, Chet Baker – Almost Blue –

“ Look For Shadows ” – be a haven I seek –

  Listen to audio

” Look For Shadows “

                       – be a haven I seek –

Should I opt

To elude a state

Plays me bleak

I’d want but flee,

Be a haven I seek

Where I may find,

The denied peace

In docile shadows,

Of place nigh blind

To hold somber mind…

 

So on a day

The sun is strong,

You may perceive  

I’m gone too long,

Held be soul lost

‘Tis surely mine,

So should ye find

Your way in time,

Look for shadows

For there I’ll be,

With austere mind

Wants not depart,

Ill-fated so resigned!

                                      

                        ode to the love of a brother lost

                                                    © Jean-Jacques Fournier

 

    

” The Boredom ” – of comfort –

    Listen to audio

                                                  Picture of Kaspar 

“ The Boredom ”

              – of comfort –

Who’d have thought,

You need find avoid

A situate distraught,

Say I tongue in cheek

From sated comfort,

To state of boredom

Adjudicated chaotic,

Patterns at random

Follies kaleidoscopic,

In brazen indulgence

Disguised as stoicism,

One hides lack of soul

In ne’er ending comfort,

Until boredom takes hold!

 

   © Jean-Jacques Fournier  

 

    

” The Crow ” – in the dead of night –

    Listen to audio

” The Crow “

– in the dead of night –

I am the crow

In a grave

Dark world,

A soul in plight

Black as the night,

Forced to live                                                

This endless flight,        

Looking for a path

To the freedom I seek,

As anxiety nears

This aging cryptique,                                                   

Who’ll suffer hell

Or fly with the devil

For a ray of light,                                

That shows a way clear

For I the crow,

To end one’s journeys

In the dead of night!

                                                                    o.v.written in Grasse, Fr.

                                                                  © Jean-Jacques Fournier

                                                                          March 21, 2005  

 

“ Don’t Stop ” – for egoist thought –

There’s a part of us

That will not stop,

Tugged by the other

With egoist thought,

On all that matters

Of living life sought,

As an ultimate factor

Would dissertate not,

What the other fosters

Said vantage together,

For what soul bought

And so found garner,

As life’s integral state

Should now discover,

Be of dubious grace

Soul can but borrow,

Of ones meagre space

Held bogus of equity,

Amounting to nought

Put aside the self-pity,

With brief time’s allot

For extent it shall hold,

That may ne’er realize,

Dream of eon time bold

In life borrowed implied…

 

Yet want part of don’t stop

From newborn to grow old

Hence want reaching till dust!

 

                                                       © Jean-Jacques Fournier

 

 

“ Dream Merchants ” – be not what they seem –

The merchants of dream

Are not what they seem,

Hence I caution beware

If ye chance let them in,

Apathetic to a risky dare

Know exploit they within,

As dream merchants play

So to get neath your skin,

Till trapped made to stay…

 

Of their dreams be alert

Tho you might judge fair,

They’ll distort and divert

As you indulge their spin,

What’s at stake be aware

You may find but chagrin,

And a pawn for their fare…

 

Ye soon find be soul bare

Tho merchants find grin,

At feed of deviant affairs

Best not chance ye begin,

For wise ought avoid airs

Of the narcissistic strings,

Held to keep you unaware

Of dreams ne’er fated fair…

 

Dream merchants shroud

They but sell their hot air,

Fake fine weather clouds

And what gullible bears,

Of ne’er ending sunshine

During hurricane seasons…

 

Their dreams of effusion

Suggest wouldst be real,

Are but empty illusions

With an unfulfilled zeal,

When too late to discover

Soul they managed steal,

As self crafted merchants

Of dreams meant disappear!

                                                                 a dedication to vivid imaginations,

                                                                        in search of honesty and meritocracy…

                                                  © Jean-Jacques Fournier